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Now I can see I was starving for everything. I was starving for his time and attention. I was starving for a commitment I wasn’t even aware of. I was starving for the true look of love I can finally see in his eyes.
At first his lips are so cautious, so soft and gentle. I think he’s afraid he’s going to break me. I don’t know that he won’t. What I do know is that I’m willing to take the risk. My fingers slide back, weaving into his hair. His low groan vibrates against my skin.
“Did I hurt you?” I ask.
“No, Hayles. You didn’t.”
Wes takes the hand towel from my fingers, allowing it to float to the floor in a pile. He kisses the inside of my palm as he slowly rises, bringing me with him. His towering frame shadows mine even more now. He looks down at me with a look I don’t know how to describe. I’m trying to figure out what he’s not saying.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. Everything.” He exhales slowly. “You’re mine. Finally.”
His kisses that were once soft are now a raging fire. The stubble that’s grown over the past few days touches and tingles over my skin. Our lips collide in a savage rhythm. I can hear our breaths mingle, each a different octave than the other. I feel like he wants to inhale me. His lips are everywhere. My neck. My shoulder. My cheek. My earlobe. The notch at the base of my neck. Everywhere he can reach, he does.
I want to leap up into his arms. I’m still weaker than I’d like, he just fell one story to his back. I don’t want to hurt him. I think he’s sensing my desires and manifests them in a way only Wes can. He reaches down, grabs the back of my thighs, and lifts me to his waist. A noise of surprise squeaks out of me, then settles back into a low groan.
His kisses mark each step of our path. Wes’s steps are slow, but steady. If he’s in pain, he’s not showing it to me. His hands massage at my back and my neck on the walk to my bed. Instead of laying me down, he lowers me to the ground with the backs of my legs skimming the bed. Even on my tiptoes, I still can’t reach him like I want.
My eagerness to grab his skin and back tell him what I’m feeling inside. Wes pulls my hands from his body, holding them in his grasp. He kisses the tips of my fingers that just barely show from their capture. He transfers their heat to his chest and cages my hands there with closed his eyes. It’s like he’s taking life from my touch. It makes me feel so powerful.
When he opens his eyes again, there’s a hunger I’ve missed. Time becomes irrelevant. He stares into my eyes as he lets my hands go. His hands remain on my body. They cup the sides of my neck as his lips greet my forehead first, then my cheeks. The heat then travels lower as they glide from the caps of my shoulders slowly down my arms.
Wes reaches for the hem of my sweatshirt, slowly making it rise over my head until my hair flows free down my back. I’m sure he’s happy I’m not wearing a bra. His smile tells me as much. His button-down flannel is partially open. I help it the rest of the way before I slide it off his shoulders.
There is a small tear on the neck of his white T-shirt. I kiss the small hole before I tug the rest of the hem free from his waistband. Still with a little hiss, Wes reaches behind him, pulling the shirt away for me, over his head. A couple of flower buds I didn’t notice before trickle from their hiding place. We both laugh softly for a minute before the heat from our bare chests begin to blend together. Our smiles turn to a need-filled stare as I trace the line of the waistband on his jeans around to the zipper. I open the button and lower the metal, tooth by tooth.
I watch each step my hands take until the soft impression of two fingers under my chin raises my focus back to his eyes. He nods his head slowly. I know my next move. My body folds until I’m sitting, then I crawl back slowly until I’m nearly lying posed for the taking.
Wes leans in, pulling at the band of my yoga pants, and tugs toward him. The cotton gives way, making a light ripple all the way down my legs. I feel this instant fear of being naked in front of him. It’s like he’s seeing me for the first time. This is the flawed me.
He quickly erases every anxiety I have with a smile in his eyes. The loving look he gives me has zero judgment, zero pity, and zero disgust. Those are the three things I fear most when I’m like this. It’s the first time I’ve been in a relationship when one of my struggles came. I’ve been terrified this could be a thing. Now that it has, Wes shows me that I have nothing to be afraid of. As he lowers his jeans, I reach my hand outstretched. I need for him to know there’s no fear from me and make it very clear, I want him.
Wes’s knee presses into my bed. He climbs into a hover over me. His kisses imprint all over my skin. This time is so careful but passionate, full of fire but tender. Once he’s inside me, I feel everything I used to feel and more.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hayley
I can’t remember the last time I slept so well. For weeks and weeks, I’d wake up so often from either my heart pounding, a nightmare, feeling sick, or simply not being able to sleep at all. I feel safe. The one person I tried to push away because I felt like I had to has given it all back to me.
He laid panting on my chest for a long time. When I was sure he could still remember his name, he rolled on to his back and pulled me to his chest. I’ve avoided showing anyone my body, especially since we got back from Seattle. I let myself be naked inside and out for him to see. He didn’t pity me, he didn’t make me feel bad for what I’d done, he just wanted me however that looked.
His warmth and soft musky scent were a soothing combination. I’d never had sex with anyone in my parents’ home before. It never even entered my mind. The only thing I thought about was him, us, and what we just committed to. If he’d even talked about marriage with me before today, I would have thought he was drunk or joking. The way he spoke to me from flat on his back was…perfect.
His hand begins to stroke mindlessly up and down my back. I move from a deep sleep to becoming more aware of things around me. The orange cast to the sky has faded into the deep purples of dusk. The breeze has picked up outside so my curtains blow a little in and out of the still slightly open balcony door. The lavender and mint candle is still burning on top of my dresser, giving another calming sense around us.
“Are you awake?” he whispers.
“Just barely. You feel so good.”
I can feel his lips curl into a smile on the top of my head. “I think I may have heard that phrase a time or two in the last couple of hours.”
My fingers thump against his chest as we both laugh quietly. “Stop it. Don’t tease me.”
“Oh, that wasn’t teasing. That was a fact. Are you okay? Is this okay?”
“This is the first time I’ve felt mostly normal in weeks. Although, I think my therapist is going to have a field day with it.”
